


i miss all the times we had

by volunteer_of_hufflepuff



Series: looking through a shattered telescope at another universe [9]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 3x18, Angst, Canon Divergent, M/M, Memory Loss, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 07:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19459105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volunteer_of_hufflepuff/pseuds/volunteer_of_hufflepuff
Summary: Alec chooses his words a little differently when talking to Asmodeus on that cold Halloween night, and it makes all the difference.Or:[“I will do anything,” he replies, “but spare Magnus any suffering.”A smile, something more sinister than what truly belongs in this world, slips onto Asmodeus’ face. “Fine,” he drawls, “then, instead, by midnight tonight, Magnus will no longer remember you. No longer love you.”]





	i miss all the times we had

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this little angsty snippet!
> 
> I've been slogging away at my two long, angsty malec wips all months and really just wanted to write and publish something and stumbled across this very angsty prompt on tumblr about someone forgetting someone when the clock strikes twelve...
> 
> I forgot to mention previously, but the title comes from OneRepublic's song 'Rescue Me', which I think is very apt for this fic. Have a listen?
> 
> Thanks to [AlterEgon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/pseuds/AlterEgon) for the beta!
> 
> Don't cry too much, and enjoy!

The musty scent of weathered books permeates the store, as does the darkness of the prevailing night. 

For it is Halloween, and he is sitting behind a worn mahogany table, facing a heartless Prince of Hell.

Alec doesn’t think he has ever felt so desperate or reckless in his life - perhaps that one time he begged Lorenzo to take his magic back from Magnus who was dying underneath its toxic strain, or that other time he thought Magnus had died under the glow of the soul sword. But it is always about Magnus, his love.

Here he is, again, thoughtless but fearful pleas dripping from his lips into the merciless ears of a demon. Who thinks that _Alec_ is the source of all of Magnus’ suffering, that he makes Magnus weak, vulnerable -

Alec can’t bear it.

“I won’t just abandon him,” he says, defiance glinting in his eyes.

Asmodeus sighs and Alec imagines the jewels that would be ordaining his fingers as he curls them up into a fist, if he was really here and not just bewitching another’s body. “Then you will be the death of him.”

Alec doesn’t flinch. “I will do anything,” he replies, “but spare Magnus any suffering.”

A smile, something more sinister than what truly belongs in this world, slips onto Asmodeus’ face. “Fine,” he drawls, “then, instead, by midnight tonight, Magnus will no longer remember you. No longer love you.”

It feels like someone has stuck their hand through his cracked ribs, right into his battered heart, and twisted it out of a blackening cavity.

Yet Alec doesn’t move, doesn’t twitch, just stares stoically ahead.

“After all, the anguish of one broken heart should suffice for the magic,” he says, his head tilted to one side in his awful contemplation. “And Magnus, in all truthfulness, will be better off without your weak mortal soul lingering nearby.”

The silver of the conduit’s ring glitters as Asmodeus drops his hand, catching the harsh artificial light of the shop.

Alec swallows against the already bubbling pain. “Deal,” he says, because Magnus is more important, really, then any of his fantasies of marriage and bliss and joy. 

He leaves the shop before Asmodeus departs, and the wind chimes sing.

..

He stops by his mother’s bookstore, and Magnus is.

Well. He is sober, and that is more than last night, and he has prepared dinner for them next to the balcony.

It is a beautiful arrangement, but for Alec, it is already too bittersweet.

Magnus looks at him with eyes brimming with love, tenderness, and Alec has never before wanted to freeze time, to stop the tick of the clock: but he now understands the desire to tear a hole into the very crinkled fabric of time.

Yet the clock still ticks to eleven.

Alec should get going before he is removed from Magnus’ life altogether.

But he can’t.

And, against his better judgement, they fall asleep together underneath his tangled sheets just before twelve, and the last thing Alec hears is a whispered _I love you,_ soft against chapped lips.

Then the clock strikes twelve. 

And Magnus disappears from his grasp.

Asmodeus, as it turns out, doesn’t leave anything to chance.

That is when Alec starts to cry, and now, he has no reason to ever stop.

..

Alec loses Magnus on a cold autumn eve, as the stars twinkle on another fretful night.

And the world carries on.

He gifts the family ring to Izzy when the time comes for her own engagement, and this one doesn’t end in wilted flowers and shattered dreams.

And when he rises in the ranks to the coveted role of Inquisitor, it is at the same time that they establish the role of the High Warlock of Alicante. When he arranges their first meeting, as formality and prosperity insist, he doesn’t think much of it.

But when Magnus walks through his office’s gilded door, Alec’s smile tightens.

It has been a few years since his lover evaporated from his arms, but his heartache has never lessened with the passing drag of time.

Magnus offers his hand, but his face is a mask of cool blank professionalism, of disinterest.

_No longer remember you._

“Mr Lightwood?” he says, a little impatiently. “You are the new Inquisitor, correct?”

Alec blinks, and the tears he can’t shed burn his eyes.

“Yes,” he says, taking Magnus’ hand, shaking and dropping it like lightning.

Magnus’ jaw tightens, but it is to be expected. He doesn’t know that Alec’s frostiness is a self-destructive protective mechanism, but thinks it another act of misguided hatred.

_No longer love you._

“Mr Bane,” he says, a title before only spoken with the teasing light of joviality, “the new High Warlock of Alicante, I presume?”

It takes almost everything in him to act as if they have never met before, never talked or loved or kissed or -

Alec shakes off these thoughts before they cut to his bones, before his facade breaks and the magic leeches from the man he will forever love, even if Magnus no longer remembers him beyond the frigid bureaucracy of the Clave.

He will need to get good at this, this evasion of the truth and looking the other way: no avoiding it, really, when now their political destinies are, once again, so inevitably intertwined.

But this time, there will be no love to soften the burden.

Magnus nods, but it isn’t friendly, far removed from the warm attitude he had encountered before, that first time they had danced to the chords of their hearts.

“Yes, well,” Magnus continues with a grim smile, “the world does move forward, Mr Lightwood.”

Their first meeting, this time, is full of stilted formalities and blatant distrust, not mystery and intrigue and the tantalising promise of _more._

Alec waits until Magnus turns the corner before he lets the tears slide down his face once more.

This should be his dream, this life of respect and dignity. Instead, trapped by his own burning devotion, it is to be his eternal nightmare.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr ](https://mirrorofliterature.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/mirroroflit)
> 
> sometimes, things don't work out. don't yell at me too much?
> 
> all comments and kudos and whatever else are always appreciated xx


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